abandon hope ...

 … all ye who enter here

 

It is little surprise that mere mortals (like me, unfortunately) abandon hope as they enter the jaws of bureaucracy. Being of course a stoic sort of a bloke I allowed the events narrated here to pass me by unruffled, unfazed. I remained cool, calm, collected, savouring the moments for the learning that they brought to the narrative of my life.

I learned to lie, too.

Ejected from the plane at Tullamarine, I passed relatively peacefully through the maelstrom of humanity. Pushing and shoving and crying in the No One’s Land of Arrivals. Okay, I queued for ten minutes at the wrong luggage conveyor belt, which slowed the process down a little, but then all was smooth sailing. My face was clearly an honest: I passed into public spaces, my suitcases un-examined.

Off I strode, confidently, for my first Australian flat white in twelve months. Thank you, Hudsons, Then set about restoring connectivity to the outside world. There on my phone was the app icon, eagerly awaiting my tender caress, my invitation to stir mysterious mysteries into life. Thank you, Airalo.

Airalo, you see, is an international provider of a valuable travel asset called eSIMS. My gentle touch and quick selection of a purchase package catapulted me back into the world of communication. Instant connection with loved ones far and wide, with providers of resources. All that I needed at the touch of a fingertip.

Except it wasn’t.

My friendly phone informed me that I was unable to connect with Airalo, Why? D'uh. Because I was not connected.

I sat, frozen, on the horns of a moebius.

Infinity loop.

Despair.

Unable to phone for my shuttle, unable to assure anyone who cared that I had arrived, unable to contact any mortal being or institution in the universe (except Hudson’s welcome coffee. I still had cash).

Clarity dawned. Airport public Wi-Fi. Why had I not thought of that? I pushed all the right buttons, found the Wi-Fi service, and was politely informed that I could not connect with it. Reasons not provided.

For twenty minutes I stared forlornly in the hole at the bottom of my coffee. 

Finally, defeated, I stumbled across the airport terminal to a telco service provider, and signed up for a package. I absorbed (or not) a litany of instructions as to how I could escape the telco’s clutch at journey’s end, how if I didn’t disconnect at the right time and I would be paying monthly fees for eternity, and how they had magnificent coverage of 99.8% of Australia.

Pleasantly surprised I asked them how their coverage would go at Gibb River. “Where’s that?” they replied. It did not augur well.

A snarl precipitated by a breakdown on the freeway meant that it took a further hour to be shuttled to my awaiting rental car. Eventually, though, I turned the key, and a hideous pile of characterless digital wizardry whispered into alleged life.

Free at last! 

Or not. I stopped twenty minutes up the road.

After another half an hour I had finally able to turn off the various beeps,  the invisible hands that clutched my steering wheel from time to time, the lights that flashed to assure me that I was being driven by Competent Korean Computers, the murmured assurances that Mister Hyundai would take care of my every driving need and mop my formerly fevered brow.

Over-riding the petulant automatic gear selection, but pining for a clutch, I made it to Base Camp One, my brow unfurled by driving. Base Camp #1.

Near Woodend, Victoria … rolling farmland and sclerophyll woodlands in the Macedon ranges. Disturbingly dry for this time of the year. Even a dirt road to remind me that all is not white lines and invisible hands and lane-departure overrides. (Though when the gadgetry reset itself it did attempt to steer me away from non-existent lines)

Daughter Unit # 5 offered welcome and sanity at least. Grandkids number three and eight eyed this dishevelled new arrival, poised between incredulity and horror, and turned back to Peppa Pig. It was, after all, the last day of school holidays, and there has to be some compensation even for outdoorsy kids.

I drove back to the vacant cottage where I was staying (pre-heated and wondrously stocked by said Daughter Unit # 5). A ’roo hopped away nonchalantly.  A kookaburra chortled as I unload the alleged car. Welcome to Australia.

There was no telco reception. But there was warmth and love.